Opening Photoshop files in a browser: what survives and what changes

Someone sends you a Photoshop file and you do not have Photoshop to hand. Voidcanvas opens it in the Editor as a layered design, not a flat picture, and it reads the file inside your browser: nothing is uploaded and the original is never changed. No PSD reader outside Photoshop gets everything, so the useful thing is to know in advance what survives. This post sets it out.

How to open one#

Drop the PSD on the Editor start screen, or press Ctrl+O (Cmd+O on a Mac) and choose it. If you installed Voidcanvas as an app, your system may offer it in the Open with list for .psd files. Photoshop artboards become boards with their background colours; otherwise the file opens as one canvas.

What comes through editable#

• Pixel layers with their position, opacity, fill opacity, visibility and colour labels.
• Groups, including groups inside groups, with their blend mode and opacity.
• Layer masks and clipping, and the transparent pixels, pixels and position locks.
• Text layers as editable type, when the whole layer uses one font, one size and one colour.
• Adjustment layers: brightness and contrast, levels, curves, exposure, vibrance, hue and saturation, colour balance, black and white, photo filter, channel mixer, invert, posterize, threshold and gradient map.
• Layer styles: drop shadow, inner shadow, outer and inner glow, stroke, colour overlay, gradient overlay, and bevel and emboss.

That covers most of the files designers pass to each other: a photo, some adjustments, type set in one style per layer, a few shadows and strokes.

What changes so it can open#

• Text with mixed fonts, sizes or colours, warped text and text on a path arrive as pixels.
• Smart objects and vector shapes arrive as pixels.
• Blend modes the Editor cannot draw, such as linear burn, vivid light and dissolve, use the nearest match.
• 16-bit files become 8-bit, and CMYK or other colour modes become RGB.
• Gradient or pattern strokes become a solid colour. Gradient overlays preserve multiple colour stops and gradient type; custom opacity stops and midpoint interpolation are simplified.
• Group masks are left out, and an adjustment clipped to one layer opens unclipped, so it affects everything below it.
• Satin and pattern overlay effects are not supported yet.

The clipped adjustment is the one to watch. A curves layer that only brightened a face in Photoshop will brighten the whole picture beneath it. Masking the adjustment, or grouping it with its layer, gets the original look back.

The report tells you what happened#

Whenever anything was changed or left out, a report opens titled Opened and the file name, listing what was Kept, what was Changed so it would open and what is Not supported yet. I would rather tell you than let you find out after an hour of editing. Treat the list as your repair list, and read it before you touch anything.

Fonts#

If the PSD uses fonts that are neither on your device nor on Google Fonts, Some fonts are missing opens and shows how many text layers use each one. Pick a replacement, keep a stand-in for now, or click Add font file to load a .ttf, .otf, .woff or .woff2. A font you add is saved inside the design, so it looks the same next time and travels with a .void file.

Even with the right font, Photoshop and browsers set type slightly differently, so compare line breaks against the original and nudge where needed.

Size limits#

The Editor draws with the browser's 2D canvas, which is comfortable up to around 4000 pixels on a side. Photos larger than 4096 pixels on their longest side are scaled down to 4096 as they come in. Very large PSDs open, but more slowly, and on a phone they are more likely to hit memory limits. Troubleshooting has the messages you might see and what they mean.

PDFs open too#

A PDF opens with each page as its own pixel layer, named Page 1, Page 2 and so on, with only page 1 visible at first. Pages come in at up to twice their printed point size, so an A4 page is about 1190 × 1684 pixels. Text in a PDF becomes pixels, so add new text layers on top rather than trying to edit it. Password-protected PDFs will not open until the password is removed.

Getting work back out#

Voidcanvas does not export PSD. If the design needs to go back to someone in Photoshop, send a PNG, or a PDF for print. To keep it editable for yourself, use File, Download project file (.void) or Download editable picture (.void.png), which keep every layer, mask and group. Open PSD, PDF and other files is the full reference.

Open a PSD in the Editor